Terra sub Mea
by NightWithMoon
Summary: The Earth Beneath Me. Harry acts rashly surprise, surprise and lands himself in a very different world to his own, where magical's never hid themselves and technology has very little presence or significance. The 'power he knows not' is within his grasp as harry must return to his home to fight. It isn't necessary to have read The Wheel of Time series to understand this story.
1. Prologue, To Step Out of Time

Terra sub Mea - The Earth Beneath Me

Prologue

My eyes wandered over the destruction, the chaos. It seemed almost as if Time stood still, pausing so that I could truly take in the world around me; waiting for me to see the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort, to see how magic wasn't so much cast from their wands as it was flowing from their beings - bending the world around it into vicious storms of violence and destructive fury. Time stood still so that I could gaze around the room, it's tiered amphitheatre like structure grim in its foreboding presence, not lightened or lessened by the bright flashes and harsh sounds of magical battle about it. I could take in the various smaller battles sprinkled throughout the room; between Death Eater and Order members. I could see the violence in their eyes and stances and saw spells fly that would shred a body more easily than stepping through a cobweb.

Of all the loud noises, bright lights, and harsh sights in the room it was two figures at the center that drew my eyes, not Dumbledore and Voldemort, but Sirius Orion Black and Bellatrix Black Lestrange. My eyes fixed upon the horrifyingly bright and seemingly innocent stunning spell that was slipping past my godfather's defenses, like so much a slippery fish between one's fingers. That simple, seemingly harmless spell in this maelstrom of cruel magic. But it wasn't innocent, for Sirius was standing not in a dueling ring or an empty field, but directly in front of the center of this megalithic structure; he stood before the Veil of Death, the shimmering bleak light of its darkly fluttering veil that whispered across its own material evoking thoughts of the soft spoken entreaties of those long past.

And yet.

Time wasn't standing still. In fact, Time was flying by and Sirius was about to die.

I don't know when I started moving, or even the path I took there, only that I had dodged Remus Lupin and slammed into Sirius just before he would have slipped into that slippery, fluttery embrace of death.

I succeeded, I saved him. I pushed him out of the way of certain death.

But now there was no one there to catch me; to slow my momentum as my ratty trainers failed to gain traction on the ancient smooth granite of the floor. Even as I saw Sirius slumping to the ground his strings cut by the stunning spell and Remus' with an outstretched arm, a hoarse cry, and horrorstruck features, Dumbledore spinning out of the way of a deadly spell and flinging out his wand in a desperate attempt to call back my motion, ignoring for a moment his deadly opponent who had taken the momentary lull to watch in vindictive glee.

I saw all this. But Time wasn't standing still, there was time for nothing more than to take in their expressions and their fear as I slipped deceptively quietly and smoothly through the strangely light and soft veil that parted and welcomed me into its embrace.

And then there was silence.

**A/N Okay, so this idea popped into my head last night and wouldn't leave me alone for almost four hours while I half-heartedly struggled to fall asleep, and now I have spent a large portion of my morning, skipping classes to write it. I already have the majority of the first chapter written so that should follow this up soon.**

**This is a crossover between Harry Potter and The Wheel of Time, however, most of the action and story will take place in the HP universe, and it isn't really necessary for you have read the wheel of time series.**


	2. A Moment in Eternity

Chapter 1 - A Moment in Eternity.

When I came to I was sprawled out on a cold floor of some hard stone-like material, my surroundings pitch black and utterly silent. It took me a moment to collect myself, but I was quickly fumbling in my robe and extracting my wand which was lit with a whispered _"lumos."_ The wan light of the spell revealed not some hellish entrance to the afterlife, but a cluttered room of various odds and ends, none of which I could make sense of on first sight.

I gazed around, my eyes sharpening and my grip on my wand tightening considerably when I saw them.

Dead bodies.

Not the desiccated corpses of individuals long dead, nor the ravaged remains of those recently and violently killed, but bodies all the same, looking almost asleep were it not for the wide, unseeing eyes that gazed hauntingly into the darkness.

I steeled my resolve. I wasn't dead yet. I had my wand, I had my wits, and I had my will. I was going to figure out how to get out of here no matter what; it wouldn't be the last thing I did.

o0O0o

I'd been here several days at least, the gnawing hunger in my stomach telling me this. It had occurred to me to be grateful to the Dursleys, for without them the hunger surely would have been debilitating. But I pushed on, pulling the water from the air to drink with a simple _aguamenti _when the thirst became distracting.

I hadn't spent the last days idle either, I had gone from one end of the massive, cavernous room to the other, finding the whole thing stuffed with trinkets and detritus like someone's overly large and cluttered garage. I had cleared a corner of the room and moved all the corpses to it, averting my eyes from some that had clearly been torn into for food of the rooms later residents. There were only eighty-three bodies in all; the veil of death had always been a horrifying fate in wizarding stories, and the only criminals they ever put through it were the ones they were too afraid of imprisoning in any other way. Even so the bodies creeped me out, each one, perfectly preserved and untouched no matter how many years they must have lain here untouched, some even with their guts and intestines splayed out to the unforgiving, and stale air.

I figured it must be some attribute of the room, perhaps it was some giant time-capsule, with all the various things in it, hardly any two alike. I had even, soon after waking, found a large standing, fluttering veil, almost identical to the one in the department of mysteries. This one, however, yielded no results when I stepped through it, only the brief touch of the ethereal cloth and then the other side.

I had long given up finding an exit along the walls, but that didn't mean much in a clearly magical room with clearly magical artifacts. I had taken to examining and experimenting with everything that I could, however, nothing from the largest statues to the smallest trinkets yielded any results whatsoever, no matter what spell I tried.

Still I wouldn't give up, I figured I could last maybe another week or two before I succumbed to the gnawing, biting hunger that ate away at my concentration and strength.

o0O0o

I didn't last two weeks. Not even a full seven days more even. I had fallen into a stupor of hazy thought and insistent hunger, sitting or lying not far from the veil in hopes that perhaps someone or something might come through.

But nothing did.

I was dying, and despite my earlier vigor and determination not to die in this room, I had begun to look forward to that end. The end of the hunger, and perhaps more terrifyingly the end of the oppressive feeling of responsibility that small glass orb had brought welling up in my chest. I hadn't done anything with the orb initially, forgetting it had been tucked into the pocket of my robe in the furor of the battle at the department of mysteries. When I finally did pull it from the pockets of my robe I had been disgusted and furious, that I had been led into a trap - to my death by starvation - all over this little, insignificant piece of magic and glass. I had hurled it into the ground taking momentary satisfaction in its shattering.

The satisfaction had fled in the face of the harsh voice of the Seeress Trelawney, a title I had never before considered giving her, even after the one prediction I had heard in my third year. '_That brings her total of real predictions up to two. I should offer her a pay raise.' _This prophecy, however, told not of an impending event that I would not realize the significance of until long after it was too late to change anything, but, despite its convoluted wording, really only left one conclusion to be had.

I was the only one capable of defeating Voldemort. That if I died in this room then Voldemort would be unstoppable until another individual, fitting the criteria of the prophecy, might be born.

However, none of that could hold my attention for long, the unrelenting and debilitating hunger eating away at my thoughts and hope, left me hardly aware of my surroundings.

Eventually I became aware that I had been tracing the lines of a particular little object in the faded light my wand produced, loosely held in my limp hand. I don't know how long I had been staring at the little ring, my eyes following the single edge that twisted and twined about the shape deceptively, little bits of color along its edges, distracting further from the optical illusion its warped shape produced.

I reached out and dragged to ring towards myself, my arm shaking and disturbingly thin. I didn't know what it was about this little ring, not all that spectacular in a room filled with such objects, but I drew comfort from its dizzying design and didn't think overly hard on the likely-hood of someone eventually finding my body here curled around this insignificant source of hard comfort. In fact, I thought of little but my hunger and exhaustion as I slipped into something between sleep and unconsciousness.

o0O0o

When I woke, the first thing that occurred to me was how surprisingly well I felt. The hunger was there, but it was distant and muted, easily pushed to the side and ignored. The next thing I noticed was that my wand was once again in my robe and that I could see now without the weak light it had spilled across my surroundings for the past eleven days. The light that now filled the entire room had no source and threw no shadows, making the entire scene deceptively flat and two-dimensional. Even as I watched I saw some of the trinkets moving about all their own, seemingly vanishing from one spot and appearing in another or a lid seemingly vacillating between open and shut.

For a few moments I hoped that perhaps this meant something, that somehow I would get out of this place and I wouldn't die. That there could yet be a solution to all the problems facing me.

But the time stretched on, whether it was a minute or an hour, I couldn't say, and nothing happened, no new changes.

I was suddenly sick of this room of this life and I wished I were elsewhere more fiercely that I have ever wished anything.

And a moment later, I was.

I was standing in an empty field that sat under a bright sky that had neither sun nor moon, nor clouds of any kind. Just like the room I had just left, however, the light was an omnipresent sort that didn't easily lend itself to seeing, and the grasses around me seemed to be green, lush and growing one moment, and yellowing and dying in cold autumnal weather the next.

I had left the room, but I was still in whatever strange place it was that acted so strangely.

Perhaps it was my own experience with visions from Voldemort or perhaps it was merely the inevitable conclusion but I soon realized that I was dreaming; that I had not truly escaped either my hunger or the room, but for a moment that I could enjoy the freedom my subconscious gave me.

I wandered for hours, each step could take me a scant few inches or miles across the seemingly deserted lands. Eventually, however, I saw something in the distance that piqued my curiosity; there was a great, white tower, standing sentinel on the horizon.

When I arrived, a distance that took only a small bit of concentration and a single step to cross, I was within a beautiful flowing city at the base of the tower made of stones so tightly and expertly laid that my eyes had trouble picking out the cracks between the massive stones, even near the base.

However, here in this city, unlike the vast fields I had been crossing previously, things seemed to changed and shift far more readily and there were even a few people that would appear and disappear periodically, going about random bits of business in strange clothes and odd manners. I supposed that it was my own mind trying to fill the city as I imagined it ought to be, but struggling and failing to find the correct individuals to fill this strange and wonderful place. It seemed too wonderful for something my mind could dream up, and with my own experiences of dreams, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps it wasn't my mind that had conjured this vision of wealth and beauty.

I continued to wander, eventually finding myself high in the tower gazing at tapestries and murals that occasionally shifted even as I observed them. The longer I was here and the more I saw the less and less I believed that it was my own dream I was in, but if not my own, then whose?

"Child, what are you doing wandering the halls unattended? Where is your Master?" I spun about coming almost face to face with a woman in a beautiful and modest summer dress who wore a stall with bands of the colors of a rainbow. Her features were serene and somehow ageless, appearing no older than twenty at one moment and easily forty the next.

"Um, What?" Perhaps not my most eloquent moment, but I really hadn't expected to run across anybody after so long of wandering alone.

Her eyes fastened upon my hand sharply, "Who gave you a Ring of Dreaming, boy?"

I followed her gaze and was surprised to see the strangely twisted ring that had so fascinated me before I fell unconscious. I hadn't even realized I'd been holding it, however, now that I thought about it I realized I'd likely had it the entire time. I had known the objects in the room were magical of some sort, the nature of the room and some of the more blatantly impossible pieces had made sure of it, however, I hadn't managed to work any of the objects. I wondered now if perhaps I had unknowingly used this stone to bring me to this place of dreams; she had, after all, called it a Ring of Dreaming. "I found it." I answered honestly. "It was amongst all the other trinkets in the room."

She observed me for a moment, assessing and measuring, making me feel rather insignificant. "Where do you live, child? If there is some cache of unclaimed ter'angreal, then the towers need know of it." Her voice was softer now, more forgiving.

I frowned and sighed in frustration, "I don't know where it is, because I don't honestly know where I am - right now, or when I'm awake. I just know I can't get out." The last was said more quietly, but I got the feeling she heard me regardless.

"Why don't you show me where your body is and I shall see if you and that ring can't be retrieved." I tried to stifle the rush of hope that flooded me at these words, being only partially successful.

I nod quickly and closed my eyes in concentration, bringing to the forefront of my mind the image of the room I had become so familiar with these past days and picturing myself and the lady both standing there in its center near the veil.

When I opened my eyes we were there and despite how well she masked it, I could tell, in the widening of her eyes, and the catch of her breath, that she was truly startled by the sight that greeted her.

"By the Light. One of the lost Stasis boxes of the Age of Legends. What a truly remarkable find. How did you come to be here?" She asked, as she turned from gazing over the towering clutters of various trinkets that made the room so unique.

I gestured to the veil, "I came through that, almost twelve days ago now, I've been trying to find a way out since."

She glanced at me and I thought there might have been a flash of concern or pity in her gaze before she moved towards the veil to inspect it. "I can assume, since you are still here, that you cannot leave the same way you arrived?" I shook my head in the negative. "I shall have to inspect this in the real world if I hope to learn anything of it. Though more likely I shall have to request Elayne and Aviendha, they are much better suited to understanding such things."

She stepped back from the veil and gazed around the room once more, "Where is your body, I must know so that I do not kill you upon my arrival."

My eyes widened slightly, "Um, I'm not sure. Somewhere around here," I gestured to the area near the veil.

She nodded, "Do you know how to wake yourself?"

I frowned slightly, "No, but I don't think I am in a fit enough state to wake even if I could."

"Very well, I shall be there soon." She closed her eyes and within moments had vanished as if she'd never been.

I stayed and watched where she vanished for what seemed like an eternity, fighting the rising hope within me as I tried not to allow my doubts and fears to manifest.

suddenly the world shook and shuddered around me and I could feel myself being dragged from the dreams by something, or someone.

**A/N This is going to be a harry potter centric fic taking place after Tarmon Gai'don. Also I think Harry will likely be back in his own universe by chapter four or so at the latest. (Though a great deal of time will have passed for him) I'm usually not too fond of fiddling with time, because it's not the best plot device, but I'm gonna anyway.**


	3. An Eternity in a Moment

Chapter Two - An Eternity in a Moment

I was not on Earth.

That had become abundantly clear very quickly after I was fed and capable of taking in my surroundings with a slightly lucid mind. The woman I had met in the Dream World, or Tel'aran'rhiod as I would come to know it, was Egwene al'Vere, the Amyrlin Seat; a woman comparable in authority and importance to the Queen of England back before it was just a title and cushy place to live. She essentially led and ruled every single witch in this world from her lofty seat of power within the White Tower.

Such a title would have certainly commanded respect in my own world, but not nearly as much as she had; for the witches of this world didn't wield wands and hide in a secret society, the witches of this world wielded the power of life itself and bent the elements to their whim, just as they wielded their influence and wisdom to bend the rulers of countries to their whim.

In fact in the entirety of this world only one person could claim to have an equal, or even comparable, station of power, and that was the Gorache Seat, the ruler of the Black Tower and all the wizards of the world.

That is where I went.

In a flurry of action and talks and various and sundry other bureaucratic and officious bits of protocol that I was mostly oblivious to the Aes Sedai of the White Tower had squeezed the tale of my life from my confused lips and determined that there really was no other place for me to go if they wanted to remain on good terms with the Black Tower; relations having still been rocky since Tarmon Gai'don - the last battle of this age of a war against evil incarnate, The Dark One - when the Black Tower had been formed as opposition and eventually balance to the White.

Thus I ended up in a place of learning for those capable of the great magics of this world, and low and behold, I had the potential.

I had seen only brief examples of these people's power, but already I was impressed and intimidated. Surely if I was to learn this power I could return to my own world with what was surely the 'Power he knows not' and I would defeat Voldemort and the world be at peace and life would be perfect.

That assumption and hope lasted about a month before I realized that learning to wield Saidin, the male half of the One Power from which all wizards of this world gained their abilities, would more likely than not take longer even than the seven years of training that I would have received at Hogwarts.

I persevered, however, deciding that if it took a decade, then it took a decade. After all, I, an almost sixteen year old, average, wizarding student, couldn't really have been expected to best Lord Voldemort, the Darkest Dark Lord of a Millennium, an individual who possessed decades of experience and an uncanny skill with magic from the beginning, without considerable training of my own.

Of course I wasn't nearly as stupid as I pretended to be at Hogwarts, what with Ron's jealousy and Hermione's obsession about always being the best and smartest, I had decided early on to continue the habits the Dursleys had ingrained in me and only achieve a low average at best.

The display of minimal academic achievement hadn't actually dulled my intelligence, however, and I was quite aware that the events of my school years weren't nearly the happenstance I was meant to believe they were. I was receiving training from Dumbledore, for some future role. most likely to do with the prophecy and Voldemort, but what Dumbledore hoped to achieve I had no idea.

So I settled down into the novice quarters of the Black Tower and began learning the complexities and beauty of Saidin, prepared for the long haul and dedicating myself to learning all I could, not only to defeat Voldemort, but to bring something of what I learned back to my own world.

That lasted perhaps a year, before I and my teachers realized that unlike every other student who trained with Saidin, I was not growing any stronger than the initial trickles of the One Power I had first learned to access months before.

It was about another year after that, that I realized why.

I had bonded to a wand.

Yes, that wonderful tool of magic. That Eleven and a half inches of holly and phoenix feather that had opened up the wonderful, and sometimes terrible, world of magic.

You see I had come to recognize wands as my own world's own sort of Ter'angreal, devices of magic and power designed for a specific purpose, and the purpose of wands was two-fold: to allow stable, controlled channeling of magic, and to regulate and seal one's connection to the One Power.

It wasn't some dastardly plot by the Ministry or some other sinister syndicate in an effort to control and limit, or any such nonsense. No, wands were designed to stop the deaths. After all, anyone who isn't carefully taught and guided in mastering Saidin is far, far more likely to be killed in the initial stumbling attempts at using it. Whether it is when they are young and suddenly accessing an incredible and addicting power so great and terrible as to destroy its conduit, should that conduit attempt to take too much, or when one is older and their inborn spark of potential can remain dormant no longer and forces its way up in feverish sickness and wild bouts of uncontrolled power.

Without proper guidance only one in perhaps a hundred young men would survive the awakening of their power, a much smaller percentage than that of the calmer more subtle power of Saidar, the women's half of the One Power. So wands were devised and created, or perhaps discovered and harnessed, it makes little difference which. In the end a method was discovered wherein every child, male or female, gained magical abilities and were no more threatened by death than any individual is on a daily basis.

While the security and health of millions of children over the centuries was a wonderful thing, it was also a truly terrible thing. As I, one of the few, if not only, individuals of my own world to ever touch the One Power, I could now see the true crime it was to forever be blocked from such a wonderful thing.

And it was forever. It wasn't something I could snap my wand and decide to never use wand magic again and suddenly all my problems were solved. No, the wand was a much more finely tuned and crafted device after so many centuries and millennia of experimentation and perfection. I may be an above average wizard, perhaps even a powerful one, but here in this world of Saidin and the One Power, I would never be more than the equivalent of a squib.

Oh, I could channel. And, perhaps if I was lucky on that particular day, I could manage to light a match or two.

But no more.

o0O0o

Years past and I enquired about the Ter'Angreal that was the Veil, and each time I was assured that it was being studied and that should anyone ever figure out how to work the thing I would be informed and returned to my own world. I stayed a novice in the Black Tower, never advancing any in a place where power and ability was still very strongly emphasized, a remnant of the manner in which it was first designed, as a place to train soldiers of war and destruction before the last battle, Tarmon Gai'don.

I learned and gained better control over what small bit of Saidin I could channel, learning little tricks and skills to stretch what little ability I did possess. I also kept my wand and practiced what magic I knew, small things that I had been taught in classes. Despite my intelligence and greater ability I had never sought to learn more and be forced to conceal such knowledge, instead portraying a below average student by not trying and truly being a below average student; a decision I was forever cursing in those times.

With my ability to channel, weak though it was, came my ability to see the weaves of my channeling and thus my ability to see the magic I was casting with my wand.

It was Spirit.

Every single spell that came from my wand, even such spells as _incendio_ and _aguamenti_, was purely comprised of extremely fine filaments of Spirit woven in incredibly complex structures and elegant interlacing patterns.

The One Power, both Saidin and Saidar, as it was wielded in this world was done with five elements, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and finally Spirit. Yet, all the spells I knew of my world were purely comprised of the last, and often seemingly least of the five elements.

Despite my weak ability it was still enough to give me the incredibly long, extended lifespan that could easily see me to four or even five hundred years old before I died of natural causes. Thus my extended youth and the difference in marking time in this new world had lead to me losing track of my age rather early on, but I must have been approaching thirty or perhaps even forty when I figured it out. The magic of my own world was made of pure spirit because it was literally reaching into the Pattern of reality and changing it - changing its spirit - it was a subtle difference, where instead of using the power of the world and life, the One Power, to change the world I used that power to make the world change itself. One used a small bit of power to achieve a result and the other used even less power to make all the power of reality achieve a result.

That was the day I stopped hating being a wizard, and truly began to respect what thousands of years of experimentation and ingenuity had created in all that was my own worlds brand of magic. It was also the day I gained my direction and purpose.

**A/N Wow... not where I was expecting to end this chapter, nor how. However, I like it and gives me a good place to pick up next chapter.**

**Harry will not suddenly discover the secret of life and reconcile magic and Saidin and suddenly be all powerful. (Just in case that's what you were expecting)**

**It's been almost two years since I read what I know of the series, so if I misspell anything that has to do with their unique terminology, just tell me and I'll fix it.**

**Also, I don't know if you can tell, but Ron and Hermione aren't my favorite characters (Though admittedly the Harry of Cannon isn't really either... much too stupid the lot of them).**


	4. Plying a Pattern

Chapter Three -

I had made it my goal to reconcile the One Power and Magic, to achieve the intricate and beautiful weaves of spirit of magic without needing the focusing, refining, and guiding aid of the wand.

It was not a short journey.

And yet, the things I achieved left me breathless and made my name known to every Aes Sedai and Asha'man the world over.

Perhaps it was my slightly better understanding of the workings of the world from my early mundane science classes, perhaps it was the much finer filaments of the One Power I was capable of wielding, perhaps it was just some innate talent that I would have possessed regardless, or maybe it was a combination of all three, I don't know, but I found I had a great skill in creating ter'angreal. It was those ter'angreal that truly made the others of the world sit up and take notice.

The most useful and famous of my creations was the Traveler's Gate, a thin metallic frame of a doorway in which a Gateway could be opened with just a soft touch from a single weave of spirit and concentration on the destination, requiring only a fraction of the normal power, making it possible for those who would normally be incapable of opening a gateway, able to do so easily. Ironically enough I was one of the very few channelers still too weak to work one. The gate alone would have been significant, however I had managed to design the Ter'angreal with an inbuilt Well, a specific type of Ter'angreal designed to store the One Power, usually for times when the chaneller has been shielded from accessing their power in some manner, though in this case I merely designed them to be a type of battery for the gates so that if you ever opened a gateway from one of my Traveler's Gates to another then the gate would become virtually self sustaining, capable of being tied off and left for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.

Massive Traveler's Gates, more than ten meters wide and almost seven meters tall, were set up in droves outside of almost every major city, making travel for even the poorest of mundane individuals as easy as a stroll through a farmer's fields.

Very soon after that I was officially graduated from a Novice of the Tower and given full status and rights as an Asha'man.

Because of the binding of my wand I was incapable of using either an Angreal or Sa'angreal, both ter'angreals designed solely for the purpose of wielding greater amounts of the One Power than an individual would normally be capable. The bond with my wand prevented me from being able to pull more power into myself, however, I was perfectly capable of using any ter'angreal that didn't require too much power, as the power that drove it was my own. However, I had also found that I was able to draw from and use Wells for the One Power. I figured I was capable of using them as the power had to first pass through me to get to the Well in the first place, making it, in some indefinable way, my own.

During my learning, and experimentation I created hundreds of trinkets with Saidin, of those perhaps one in ten functioned in some way, and of the ones that did something perhaps one in five did something useful. However, with each different creation I learned something new, with each year that passed I grew several steps closer to my goal.

I had found that not only were all spells purely Spirit, but that the wand itself couldn't channel anything but Spirit; it acted as a dam to any other element I tried to channel through it. In fact, I suspected that if a more powerful individual were to try and channel any element other than Spirit through my wand that it would likely destroy the wand, however, amusingly enough, the other residents of the Tower were, not so subtly, wary of my wand. They knew what it had done to my own power and potential and were not at all eager for anything of the sort to happen to them.

o0O0o

Somewhere along the way, likely around the time I would have celebrated my hundredth birthday, had I kept track of them, I achieved what I now consider as true mastery of the One Power.

That doesn't mean I knew every weave or skill there was to know, or that I was some invincible master of Saidin, or even that all that much changed from the decades preceding it. Mastery of the One Power, as I defined and tried to teach, was when one learned the secret to channeling.

However, it wasn't a secret that could be taught, merely shared so that others could work towards it themselves. Women who channel Saidar would open themselves to the source and guide its flows, whereas men would seize the power and force it into the form they desired.

The secret was in the way you controlled the power, a middle ground; to open yourself to the power, to welcome it into your body, but then to make it your own, not some greater otherworldly energy of life, but an extension of your own life and power.

I determined that such a moment of revelation and discovery is likely more difficult the more power one is capable of wielding, as the more power you try to make your own the more the universe and the Pattern of Reality tries to fight you in the case of Saidin, and overwhelm you in the case of Saidar.

Something about Saidin did change for me that day, though. When I woke up in the mornings and went to sleep at nights, indeed even while I was asleep, I was channeling. I no longer released Saidin, because I didn't seize it any more, instead I think in some way I made the Pattern recognize me as more than merely an individual capable of accessing it's power, but as an individual whose nature and very place in the Pattern was that of a channeler. I somehow made it so that my natural state of being was wielding the One Power, instead of occasionally taking the power to enact some change in the world. Instead of releasing Saidin, I only ever concealed my presence, weaving an intricate web of spirit that I would invert and lay about myself, a skill that had been rediscovered shortly before Tarmon Gai'don, and was impossible to achieve with a wand as the wand distanced the caster too greatly from their weaves to achieve the intimate control necessary to invert a weave. Also from that day forth my weaves were easier to control, answering and flowing to my whims much more smoothly now that I no longer fought the power for control. I had heard of only a couple of other individuals who used their power like I now did mine, they were some of the children of the Dragon Reborn and Aviendha of the Aiel; the children had apparently been exposed to a bonding when they were still fetus' and thus had been awakened to the One Power much, much earlier than was either natural or safe, however, they had survived and gained a much closer relationship with their power, like my own, because of it.

o0O0o

I had been in this world for well over two centuries, only my channeling and nearly unique, intimate connection with Saidin had preserved my youth to the extent that I appeared only in my mid to late twenties; by the time I had advanced beyond novice, the custom of using Oath Rods, ter'angreal used to bind a person forever to their word, had long since been done away with, their deleterious effects on one's lifespan having been discovered along with many other lost and forgotten things in the tumultuous times that had surrounded Tarmon Gai'don.

I had long ago given up on returning to Earth. In fact, I had really long since given up my insistence that it was my world and that this wasn't. I had lived a far, far greater portion of my life here, after all.

At one point during my time I had even gone and inspected the Veil myself, hoping my own skill with ter'angreal might lend itself to discovering how to work it, however, after years and years of work and research the most skilled individuals had determined that the Veil was designed to pair with the one in my original world and that it was the secondary gateway, that the two veils were only connecting when the connection was initiated at the other end. This Veil somehow acted as a beacon to the other, whereas the other was completely invisible from this universe at all times, except when a connection is active. So we set a good dozen wards tied to Wells that I designed and placed them around the Veil in the hope that one day someone would come through and that we would be able to 'catch' the connection before it disengaged and hold it in this reality, thus opening the door from this end.

Of course that wasn't all that was achieved, one particularly zealous individual of the Brown Ajah, a sect among the Aes Sedai who had dedicated themselves to the acquisition and preservation of knowledge, had managed to unearth the original purpose of the veil in some dusty tome deep in the White Tower's ancient library.

As it turns out the question of whether wizards should hide in the shadows and fringes or rule and guide was a much, much older question than anyone had ever realized. The Veil had been created as a gateway to a world where magic could be hidden, and those that wished not to have to fight the wars of the people quietly left this world many millennia ago. Because the Earth that was my home was supposed to house the individuals who wished to hide they had decided to make the travel only one way, so that someone from this world couldn't travel to Earth and disrupt and disturb their life-style, while anyone from Earth who couldn't tolerate the life-style, could, at any time, step through the veil into a world where they would no longer have to hide. Of course, all of this had been long forgotten and the Veil itself stored away with other ter'angreal and trinkets within the stasis box for thousands of years.

However, all that was to change today, for I had received word that someone had come through and the gateway was being held open.

o0O0o

I had made the trip to Tar Valon and the White Tower in only a short half-hour, despite the hundreds of miles that separated the two towers. In fact, from the moment someone left the other veil to the moment I arrived, was hardly an hours time.

Whoever had left the Veil had been trapped within the wards, aware of only an infinite, empty whiteness all around them; it had been something I recommended seeing as how the Veil had been a method of execution for Earth's worst magical criminals for many centuries.

When I arrived, however, it was to the sight of a rather depressed looking Sirius Black sitting alone on the floor, perfectly visible from my perspective, though he would be utterly incapable of sensing me.

**A/N alright, people I have written more than a thousand words a day for this story... I would kinda like it if you could take the time to write just a dozen or so and tell me what you think.**


	5. Judgment Day

Chapter Four -

I stared blankly at Sirius for a moment before my mind took off like a shot. My first thought was an illusion or a trap, but that not only made no sense, but the wards should have stripped away anything a wizard could have created with a wand, and he'd been here too long for it to be a potion. My next thought was a philosophers stone, or something of the like, but that too was discarded when I realized that he not only looked un-aged, but completely unchanged from my recollections; he was still the frightfully pale and slightly unhealthily skinny Azkaban survivor he had been in my last, most vivid, memories of him. That meant that he hadn't found some way to survive for the past two centuries, but that he somehow didn't experience them at all.

It occurred to me like the last piece falling into a puzzle, an almost audible click as my thoughts and theories coalesced into sensible coherence.

The Veil is a gateway not across space, but across Universes themselves. I knew enough physics and understood the world around me well enough to know that you did not have time without space, nor space without time - why else would they call it the space-time continuum - thus in two entirely separate universes, where space didn't overlap, time didn't overlap. It meant that time in the two universes would be independent of each other at any time the two weren't connected, thus at any time the veil was not actively connected.

With this in mind I could then know by my godfather's unchanged appearance, that very little time must have passed since my own departure; A concept, that left me with a great deal to consider.

In the meantime, however, my godfather had been left to wait long enough. I smirked slightly, I could well remember his off-kilter sort of sense of humor, even after so many years. I wove a complex weave of spirit with the tiniest traces of air, wind, fire, and earth about myself, inverting it as I went. It was actually a creation of my own, a combination of all I know of glamours, which included only a single spell designed to cover up zits, and the Mist of Mirrors, a weave of this universe's for illusions.

That done I reached out with a tendril of spirit and caressed the wards into parting for me as I stepped forward.

o0O0o

Sirius looked up startled as an ethereal, shining figure seemed to take form out of the whiteness that surrounded him.

He had stepped through the Veil, hoping, but not believing, that he might find his godson on the other side, and failing that an end to the struggle against his demons that never seemed to leave these days. He had found himself in a space of infinite light and seemingly space; seemingly he said, as he was incapable of moving more than a few feet in any direction as the air suddenly grew hard as stone.

He wasn't dead. He didn't feel dead. At least he didn't think so, after all, he wasn't being tortured in the pits of hell - though the waiting was perhaps getting there - and he couldn't be in heaven -_ Where were the women?_ Instead he was made to wait, for what, he didn't know, but it looked like he was about to find out.

The figure gazed down at him with a look so full of knowing that he felt the need to squirm. It spoke in a deep tolling voice that bypassed his ears and shook his bones and pierced his mind. "Sirius Orion Black, you have been brought before us to be judged for your sins. Stand ready for our Judgment." Sirius scrambled to his feet, almost faster than he could consciously think to do so.

"We shall begin at the beginning, as is fitting. For the crime of picking your nose at the age of three, you shall receive ten years imprisonment in the pits of hell. For the crime of sticking your tongue out at your mother's back, at the age of three, you shall receive five years in the pits of hell." Sirius blinked. Then he blinked again.

He wasn't sure if he should cry or laugh. He really hoped this was a joke. He really, really hoped. _Good, God, what happens when they get to my Hogwarts years?_

There! He saw it; the man's, for it was a man, lips twitched. He let out an explosive sigh. "Okay. Okay. You had me for a moment there, but I figured you out. Now can you pleease tell me why I had to wait so long." He half whined, half asked.

The man smiled, his eyes shining with mirth now clearly visible as the shining of his body and dress abruptly vanished, leaving a tall, well-built, but average looking man in its place. "It took us so long because you attempted a Trans-Universal dislocation without the proper identification papers. Illegal immigrants such as yourself have to go through a rigorous screening process before you're permitted out of limbo."

There was a certain sharpness in the smile and flash of the eyes that reminded Sirius painfully of when Prongs used to wind him up. "Are you still pulling my leg, or are you serious?"

"I'm not Sirius, you are. But I was also still pulling your leg," His smile faded slightly, his countenance becoming more businesslike and serious, "after a fashion. You have crossed into another Universe, however, you were kept waiting so long because I was halfway across the world when word came of your arrival-"

The man was interrupted as another figure materialized out of the infinite whiteness, "You can toy with him another time. For now the connection is destabilizing; something is fighting us from the other end. We can hold the gateway open for another half hour at most, so if you're going to go through, now is the time."

The man blinked, looking slightly surprised, then frowned. "Send word out to both Towers, if anyone wishes to accompany me, now is the time, however, warn them that time clearly doesn't flow at the same rate there; everything they know could be gone by the time they return, even if they turn around the moment they arrive on the other end." He turned away from the woman, gazing speculatively at Sirius, his mind seemingly elsewhere. "Also tell Terriban that my notes on everything I know and have done are in my desk in my rooms, I trust they will find their way safely to the right hands. I have brought everything I'll need with me, it's sitting just outside the wards, but I hadn't expected the departure to be this rushed."

She nodded before stepping back and vanishing again.

"You, however," The man said as he refocused his gaze on Sirius, "Now have a choice. Do you return with me back through the Veil and to your own universe, or do you choose to remain here, in a universe you know nothing of, but doesn't view you as a criminal?"

Sirius blinked at this turn of events, while he had hoped a little that the veil didn't lead to death, he had never considered that the option of returning would ever exist. "What about my godson? He should have been the last person through before me; wherever he is, that's where I want to go."

The man frowned slightly. "While it is true that he preceded you out of the Veil, he did so over two centuries ago. Do you still wish to go with him, even if he has long been un-needing of your guidance and guardianship?"

Sirius' eyes widened, "Two centuries!" he hoarsely whispered. He closed his eyes slowly, pain showing in their depths. "He's dead then." He said quietly, defeated.

"No!" The man said sharply, "not dead, not by a long shot, but neither does he need someone to look after him."

Sirius looked up hopefully, then frowned sharply, "Just because I can't be the godfather I should have been doesn't mean I can't be the godfather and friend I can yet be."

The man looked closely at him, judging, it seemed, before nodding sharply. "Then you shall accompany me back through the Veil."

With that said and a sharp gesture that seemed to tear away the whiteness, leaving a large stone room with several men and women in strange dress bustling around it.

The man strode to the side of the room and hefted a heavy looking pack over his shoulder before heading over to the same woman who had spoken to him earlier. She was standing to the side of the room holding her hand up to her earring and speaking to someone who clearly wasn't present. The man interrupted her, "I'm heading through now, in case they lose the connection sooner than expected, perhaps if it is the wizards on the other side I can stop them and that will give you more time to organize anyone who chooses to follow, if not then know that I will attempt to return some day if it is possible."

She nodded and smiled warmly, "You be sure you do, Master Atlas, this world will miss you and your crazy inventions. Goodness knows, my mother will miss you too, and she'll be mighty displeased that you left before she could say goodbye."

He smiled, "Tell the Amylain that I'll see her in Tel'arna'rhiod if she complains too much, I am quite certain that dreams can cross the divide, though I shudder to think what would happen to anyone who tried to make the actual trip through them." She smiled and nodded again, before stepping back and restarting her conversation with no-one.

The man strode across the room, not sparing anyone else a glance and, with little ado, grabbed Sirius' arm and dragged them both through the Veil.

**A/N Okay, so I tend to try and be slightly poetic in my writing, something left over from when I studied Latin and fell in love with the way they wrote, but reading over some of my stuff I kinda come across as merely stuffing my writing full of big words... Does it seem that way to anyone else? or is the style good enough, and doesn't bother or distract from the story?**

**Okay... So I didn't really want Sirius to return, but I just couldn't think of a way to leave him behind... For next chapter do we want Harry to reveal himself to the world, just Dumbledore, no one? Do we want him to return to hogwarts (to teach, as a student, in some other capacity)? I've got many different scenarios circling around my head and I can't quite decide which I like best... So it's up to the reviewers (the few of you that there are) to give me your recommendations and preferences. **

**Also I'm kinda tired from classes and haven't proofread this chapter even once, so if there are any glaring mistakes, I apologize.**


	6. Bridging the Gap

Chapter Five - Bridging the Gap

Dumbledore strode down the dank, dark halls exuding a presence of grandfatherly benevolence that was not at all what he felt at the moment. Instead he was mired in his thoughts; stuck somewhere between panic, fury, and guilt, leaving his thoughts in a tumultuous mess that refused to sort itself.

The clanging of the heavy iron doors in front of him, as a young Auror scurried to let him through, brought him out of his brooding for a moment. When the Auror moved to follow him into the room, however, he stopped, placing a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder. "I think it will be best if I go in alone Mr. Membrook." _Membrook, Class of '91, decent at Transfigurations and potions, moderately skilled with charms._ His mind supplied automatically.

Membrook nodded hurriedly, stepping back, "Oh, o'course Headmaster Dumbledore, sir."

Dumbledore gave him a kind smile, this one less fake than his grandfatherly facade had been a moment before, and strode into the room.

It wasn't a very large room, no more than three meters wide and seven deep, bisected by heavy iron bars that stretched from floor to ceiling and separated any visitors from the inmate.

Both inmate and Headmaster waited for the heavy clanging of the door as it once more shut behind them before speaking. "Sirius, I will not be able to spirit you away this time, we shall have to win this in court-"

"No." It was sharp, angry even. "Our position is weak enough as it is; no one that can't be shut up or discredited saw Voldemort. As it is, you'll have to scramble to insure none of the rest of the Order gets thrown in Azkaban, don't waste what little political capital you may have on me." Sirius held up a hand to silence Dumbledore's arguments. "Just make sure it's not the Kiss; have them send me through the Veil. If there's any hope Harry isn't dead, then it lies through the Veil."

Dumbledore stood tall and silent for a moment before his shoulders slumped ever so slightly. "I can do that." He sighed and turned to leave the room, "that little, I can do."

o0O0o

Dumbledore sat stiffly in one of the many seats that had been set up in the amphitheatre that was the Death Chamber. He had done as Sirius asked and gotten him sentenced to death via the Veil. He sighed tiredly, _perhaps this is best; Sirius, despite being a good man, is a broken man. Perhaps letting him go on to the next great adventure now will be a mercy._

The seats all around him were filling rapidly, people settling down for the spectacle. Fudge was seated further forward looking positively gleeful. A small section to the right was filled with various reporters, quills scribbling away furiously already.

With a deep reverberating sound the great doors were opened and Sirius Black was dragged in, hands tied behind his back, with an escort of nearly a dozen aurors.

Fudge stepped forward, smiling. "Sirius Orion Black, You are hereby sentenced to Death by way of the Veil. Do you have any last words?" He spoke pompously, posing for the reporters and cameras. His ill-concealed glee at 'capturing and bringing to justice' Sirius, and the spectacle he could turn the event into for public approval, was clear.

"Actually, I do." Sirius said. He smiled cockily and stood tall, "I think you're a small, small man, Fudge. So stuck in your desperation for power and your unending greed that you'll never see beyond your own desk and coin purse to ever do this world any good. But none of that matters right now, all that matters is that I've been stuck in that little cell for about three weeks now and I really, really want to stretch my legs and have no desire to sit here while you read off my crimes and go through the whole rigmarole. So ta-ta, and Mischief Managed." He broke free of the carelessly loose hold the aurors had on his arms and sprinted across the room, diving head first into the Veil, getting there before all but two of the aurors had even drawn their wands.

Fudge looked... puce, and positively furious. He glanced up at the reporters and his expression drained of its color, making him look rather sick instead; the reporters were in a frenzy clearly having gotten every word of Sirius' farewell and more than likely looking forward to publishing something not nearly as flattering of Fudge and his administration as he would have liked.

It was at that point that Fudge realized something else had gone wrong, the rest of the room picking up on it as well; the Veil hadn't settled. It whipped about within the arch and white light seemed to spill from nowhere.

Dumbledore leaned forward, interested. He was no expert on the Veil of Death, though admittedly he had learned as much as he could about it in the past few weeks since Harry had fallen through. However, something he did know, quite well, was that the Veil would flutter and glow occasionally when an individual went through, but only ever for a fraction of a second, no more.

It had been at least twenty seconds now and the Veil showed no signs of calming.

"Unspeakables." Fudge shrilled. "Get a team of Unspeakables in here. Now." He wrung his hands nervously, looking about the crowd.

Dumbledore stood, stepping away from his seat. "It seems to me, Minister, Ladies, and Gentlemen, that the events of the day have come about unexpectedly quickly, but that it is now time for we who do not belong in this department to depart, and make way for the experts who might make sense of these events." Dumbledore smiled benignly at the crowd, but his influence was still such that they vacated the room quickly enough despite their obvious interest in the Veil and its continued odd behavior.

When Ministry employees were all that were left and a dozen hooded and cloaked Unspeakables were gathered around the Veil and its dais, Dumbledore made his way down further into the chamber. Despite his words, he had absolutely no intention of leaving before he knew what was going on.

Fudge and several aurors remained too, speaking with the unspeakables and various other individuals. It only took the Unspeakables a dozen minutes to determine that some sort of magic was, for lack of a better word, plugging the Veil and preventing it from shutting, they guessed that it was likely Black's accidental magic at the prospect of dying, however, that still left them the issue of removing it.

Forty-five minutes later and a rather odd group of seven Unspeakables arrived, six of them stationing themselves around the Veil in an arc and the seventh stepping closer. They were a team of Sympathetic casters, the largest team Dumbledore had ever seen, in fact. Sympathetic casting required that every wand used had to be compatible with every other wand and with every combination of every other wand, so that with each new person involved the difficulty increased tenfold at least. Also the casters themselves had to be incredibly disciplined to be able to intertwine their magic and will at the correct times and places to achieve the proper result. It was an incredibly difficult facet of magic, however, the benefits could be astounding, after all it was what made Hogwarts what it is today, the four founders were such a powerful team because they were uncommonly well matched to each other and capable of magics beyond any single individual.

Dumbledore watched transfixed as at first one and then the next, and the next began chanting low and guttural, slowly adding another caster every minute and building to a crescendo of sound and magic that was positively flowing off the wizards and witches. It made gooseflesh pop up along his arms and make him want to take a step back from the threatening feel of the power, something that only the very powerful acts of magic could ever do.

For the longest time nothing seemed to be happening and then the seventh and final caster raised their wand and began to chant and the light beyond and from the Veil noticeably began to dim.

For a moment Dumbledore considered stopping them, so that the Veil could remain open and perhaps Sirius and Harry might return through it, but he knew that was foolish. Leaving a direct gateway to Death open to the world could only bring bad things; who knows, perhaps if its left open too long people would begin toppling over dead, or perhaps some unholy creatures might tear there way free of death's embrace to terrorize the world. No, it was wiser not to interfere no matter how much he wished to.

The chant continued to spiral to a close as the light of the Veil became less and less, and just before the last syllables were to flow from the casters lips the Veil flared brightly once more and two people stepped through, the Veil flowing smoothly into position behind them, dark and still; the gateway was closed.

One of the individuals to leave the Veil was very clearly Sirius Black. Dumbledore released a breath of surprise or relief he wasn't sure. The first of the two to have come through Dumbledore didn't recognize, he had long brown hair and sharp blue eyes set in aristocratic features. The man took in the room with a quick glance and then smiled at the ministry officials, "I must thank you for opening the Way, I have been waiting for a while." His voice was a deep, smooth tenor.

Sirius turned towards his companion once he'd seen the settled Veil, "You said-" Sirius didn't get to finish the sentence as he was silenced by a fierce glare from the man.

"Now see here, young man, that man was sentenced to death, you can't just be bringing him back." Fudge spluttered.

The first man raised an eyebrow and the edge of his mouth twitched. "Not allowed to return him? Minister I don't think you truly understand what you are speaking of. The Veil doesn't lead to death, it leads to another universe." He smiled, this time a little less pleasantly, "One which doesn't appreciate you dumping your trash there." Fudge's eyes widened and he fumbled for something to say. "Now I am Adrian Atlas, representative to the Black Tower, and emissary of the first world."

Fudge shook himself, looking slightly fearful. "Black Tower? Black? You're a Dark wizard. Aurors, arrest this man and seize Black!" He shouted.

The man blinked looking rather nonplussed. "Now that is a rather large leap in log-" He was cut off as nearly a dozen stunning spells leapt from various wands at him.

He scowled fiercely and with a sharp gesture the spells fizzled out in mid air. "Now, see here, Minister. This is totally uncalled for, I am no threat to you or your peo-"

He was cut off again, this time by a hysterical minister, "See his dark magic, you must stop him! All necessary force is hereby authorized by the Minister of magic, now get him!" Fudge screamed.

Dumbledore frowned himself, feeling things were spiraling out of control. He was about to speak up when an overzealous auror took the ministers words too seriously and shouted out the killing curse.

From there events moved too quickly to follow. Dumbledore had his own wand up and out in a flash ready to transfigure or conjure a block, but even as he raised his wand the man on the dais raised his hand again to do the same as he had to the other spells. The killing curse flickered for only a moment before solidifying and continuing on its way. The man's eyes widened considerably and he threw himself to the side to avoid the spell which continued through the space he had been standing and slammed into the Veil, blasting a large chunk of the arch free.

The Veil glowed fiercely for a moment before shuddering and the cloth of the veil itself seemed to dissolve into mist that vanished within moments leaving an empty and dead arch in the middle of the room.

Everyone froze, surprised by the turn of events. The man stood taking everything in and scowling furiously, "You fool. You utter and complete fool. You know not what powers you are playing with when you cast such a spell, you invite the Dark One into yourself and this universe unnecessarily." He strode up the dais and seized Sirius' arm once more, ignoring everyone else in the room and both vanished with a sharp crack of apparition.

Dumbledore frowned, their presences had lingered far longer than was normal with apparition before vanishing. Also they had done so one after the other, not together, almost as if... _Ah._ Dumbledore smiled slightly, after all the impossibilities that Sirius had accomplished such as escaping Azkaban and returning from the Veil of Death, no one would question apparating out of a securely warded room, however, doing so without first breaking the wards was impossible. "I think, Minister, that I should be returning to my duties, you clearly have your own problems to attend to." The Minister nodded distractedly and Dumbledore strode slowly up the stairs and to the door.

He held the door open wider and longer than he might normally and only a twitch of his beard betrayed his amusement as someone invisible slipped passed him and whispered a short, "Much obliged."

**A/N Okay, so clearly this took me longer to get up than I was doing last week, but it took me a while to decide how I wanted to do this, and I've been more busy this past week... So anyway tell me what you think.**


	7. Sight to the Sightless

Chapter Six - Sight to the Sightless

Dumbledore strode down the corridor and stepped into the lift, ensuring that the door remained open long enough for any extra passengers that may or may not get on. He was really quite impressed, he, like several wizards before him had in their elder years, learned to sense magic and magical beings, even going so far as to become familiar with certain presences or signatures. Somehow this individual, Adrian Atlas he had said his name was, had managed to completely mask not only his presence but the presence of his illusion that hid them, something Dumbledore had believed impossible, having tried to discover a way to do so, much like many, many other wizards over the years.

Almost as soon as the lift doors shut and the lift began to ascend to the atrium, there was a ripple of air and both Sirius and his companion, Adrian, became visible.

Dumbledore considered them both, Sirius from his slightly surprised and befuddled expression, clearly knew little. The other though. Adrian showed a disturbing amount of intelligence and knowledge in his too sharp eyes; in fact, had Dumbledore not been assured of his considerable skill in Occlumency by his absolute lack of projected thoughts, he might have been curious enough to try and peek. Instead he settled for the look of an indulgent and amused, benevolent grandfather. Adrian's features only seemed to sharpen at this, though.

Before anything could come of the slight hostile vibe Adrian was giving off, it was interrupted by Sirius, "Hey! You said I could go where-"

The look was far sharper and fiercer this time than it had been in the chamber of Death - though now that he thought about it, perhaps that name was no longer appropriate - and succeeded in silencing Sirius a second time. "If you will remain silent and attentive, you will get your answers soon enough." He said, though not too unkindly. He turned back to Dumbledore, "Now. You." The words were hard and authoritative, in a way that had not the man been so many years his junior and had not Dumbledore been so used to the respect and authority he wielded, it might have made him wince and expect punishment for misbehavior. "I assume you can easily enough provide transport for myself and Mr. Black to grounds where we can speak uninterrupted; we have much to discuss, you and I."

Dumbledore blinked, he hadn't expected that to be the first thing to be said, but really a lift wasn't the place to be greeting a traveler from another universe. So he merely nodded, pulling from his pocket some lint that quickly took the form of a woolen sock under his wand, then glowed blue with the light of a portkey. "This will take you to my office in Hogwarts once we reach the atrium. I will be able to join you momentarily, however, I think it best we not depart together." He handed over the sock to Adrian and both Sirius and he shimmered and vanished again just as the lift gates clanged open.

Dumbledore strode across the Atrium to the fire grates and stepped in without hesitation, calling out Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office, even as he felt the faint pulse of his own magic activating in the portkey somewhere behind him. The trip through the floo was short for someone of his privilege but still longer than a portkey, so that when he stepped out of the grate in his office it was to see the man confidently sitting in a plush armchair in front of his desk, while Sirius stood, unsure, off to the side.

Albus maneuvered himself around his desk and into his own incredibly comfortable chair, though it didn't look it. "Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Atlas, was it?" He trailed off, allowing him to start the conversation.

For a moment it seemed as if he wouldn't respond, the man eventually spoke, however. "That is the name that has become widely recognized in the First World, yes." The answer was evasive, but Dumbledore allowed it to pass.

Instead choosing to comment on something else, Dumbledore asked. "That is the second time I have heard you refer to where you have come as 'the First World,' why is that?"

The man opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by the surprisingly loud groan of old wood as Sirius finally decided to seat himself. Sirius glanced up and opened his mouth to apologize, however, after a quick glance at Adrian, decided he would remain silent instead.

Adrian pursed his lips, though whether it was annoyance or amusement, Dumbledore couldn't tell. "The First World is the name given to the Universe to which the Veil goes, and from which I have just come. I should clarify that it is the first, not because that is from where I come and where I was, but because the Way between was constructed there and the Veil, as you call it here, was sent to this universe, not made here. Thus this Universe is the consequence of that choice and therefore second."

Dumbledore blinked, "That sounds like it has something to do with the theory of an infinite number of Universes, created by every choice and possibility. Though I know little of that branch of science, besides the basic theory." Dumbledore trailed off, losing himself in his thoughts for a moment. He pulled himself from his distraction with a slight shake of his head, and addressed the man. "From yours and Mr. Black's presence, I can assume that traveling from your universe to this one is not impossible, and thus I must ask why it has not been done before - many have gone through the Veil over the past millennia." His thoughts were on Harry, but if this man didn't know anything about him then he wasn't certain he should reveal anything.

"The Veil was designed for a specific purpose, not out of curiosity or scientific achievement, so when it was made it was meant only to go one way. I have been waiting over two centuries for someone to come through so that I might ride the connection here."

There was a pause as Dumbledore took that in and made of it what he could - though he had trouble believing this man was nearly as old as he claimed.

"Oh." Sirius spoke, gazing at the man very differently than he had been. "Oh." He repeated seemingly stuck. Adrian glanced at him and saw his dawning comprehension. He winked, careful that that side of his face was out of Dumbledore's view. Sirius startled at the gesture, then with a slowly spreading smile that was too devious to call pure delight, he turned as settled comfortably back in his chair, prepared to wait and watch.

Dumbledore watched the interaction, but didn't understand. "You say you have been waiting two centuries, why then did you not return three weeks ago when someone else went through, or indeed, at any other time over the past decades when someone has gone through?" Dumbledore asked.

Adrian looked away from his godfather and focused on Dumbledore, "You are laboring under the false assumption that time travels the same here as it does there. It does not. In fact, I could step through the Veil right now and find that several millennia have passed on the other side, or conversely that it hasn't even been a full minute." Dumbledore considered this for a moment, then nodded, slowly. He understood, more worrying though, is that he might just believe too, which would mean Harry was far out of reach, and likely had been for a very long time.

Dumbledore sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Well, now that we have cleared that up, perhaps we can get on to what it is that you wished to discuss with me?" Dumbledore said.

Adrian hesitated for a moment before shifting forward to begin speaking. "As I was beginning to tell your Minister, I am a representative of the Black Tower; named not for the character of its inhabitants, but for their gender and their role in acting as the balance to the White Tower and the," he paused, seeking the right word, finally settling rather dissatisfied with, "Witches of my world." Sirius frowned at the wording, but said nothing. "While that is true, it is only a small part of the reason I have come here." Adrian leaned back, considering for a long moment. He scrutinized Dumbledore and Sirius both before his eyes landed on the many portraits of the room that were not so subtly eavesdropping. is eyes narrowed slightly before, with nary a twitch of muscle to betray his action, he wove an illusion and silencing ward about the four living occupants of the room - Fawkes included. Dumbledore twitched, watching surprised as the air around the walls of the room rippled and became grey and blank. "The other reason I am here is because of a prophecy I became aware of shortly before I left this Universe and arrived in the First, a little over two hundred years ago." As he said this the air rippled one last time, though now it was his form that blurred and shifted; revealing long black hair tied back to tame its messiness, two sharp, piercing, emerald green eyes, and a long faded scar in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Dumbledore froze for a long moment, his surprise masterfully suppressed. "Harry." He said, at last.

Adrian frowned. "Adrian Atlas. I awoke in a new and very different world two centuries ago and I, as part of fitting in and moving on, chose a new name, one that my achievements could be recognized by." No one seemed too pleased with the turn the conversation had taken. "I must make it clear, Dumbledore. I heard the prophecy and I was quite determined to see it through." Adrian sighed. "But that was two centuries ago. You weren't the only one to assume time travelled the same on both sides of the veil; I only realized it didn't when Sirius came through so unchanged. I gave up hope of returning and 'achieving my destiny' long ago. The First World is more than just a place for me, it has become my home, my adventures and accomplishments are there." Dumbledore made to speak, but Adrian stopped him with a raised palm. "I am still unsure of what to make of my changed fortunes, now that I realize so little time has passed here. It makes me believe in such things as the pattern, and fate, all the more - and terrifies me because of that.

"I am not the quiescent child you lead about by the nose anymore, and, indeed, I was uncertain until just a moment ago whether or not I would reveal myself to you. However, now that I have, you must know that I will not go back to whatever role I filled or you expected to lead me into. I am a grown man - many times over - and I," Adrian paused, his lips quirking, a line of verse from his mundane youth presenting itself to him. "Am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Dumbledore gave the slightest twitch at the last word, but Adrian dismissed it.

"That being said, there are vast gaps in my knowledge of magic that I would like to fill, gaps that could be most easily mended, I imagine, in such a place as Hogwarts. Though don't for a moment think I wish to be, or will permit myself to become a student; I spent over eighty years stuck as a novice in the Black Tower, that was more than enough for me.

"Instead I propose you allow me to teach a class." Adrian said, the idea occurring to him as he spoke it. "A class on the knowledge common to the First World that has clearly been lost to this one - such as the nature of the Universe, our magic, and the Dark One."

Dumbledore finally chose to speak up, and chose perhaps the most important, but most irrelevant thing to question. "The Dark One?"

Adrian snorted. "That is a very, very broad topic to broach at such a time, but perhaps it is appropriate." Adrian carefully collected and constructed his thoughts on the topic, his gaze going slightly distant as he recalled the his old lessons. "Hmm, the legend goes that Creation began and created, but with Creation came Destruction. Destruction would strike without warning or reason, destroying that which was good and fair, and that which was not in equal measure.

"Creation was dissatisfied by such senseless destruction, so it created within Destruction Sense. However, Creation was incapable of truly understanding Destruction and the sense it gave Destruction was twisted and marred by Destruction's nature. Now, instead of senseless destruction, Destruction became cunning and clever, instead of leaving random obliteration in its path it struck with care, leaving seeds of destruction and decay that would grow and spread. And it came about that much that was good and loved was lost and much that was cruel and hideous would spread, and Creation created again; a prison to forever contain and restrain Destruction's Sense. Of course, nothing is permanent when it is fighting the force of Destruction itself, and thus the everlasting war began; the struggle to shore up the prison each time its walls crumbled.

"Creations power, given to man, is what creates witches and wizards, Aes Sedai and Asha'man, it is magic. However, there is an opposing power that comes from destruction, called the True Power, by those who practice with it. It is an unholy power that warps, twists and eats away at anything it touches - the sanity and bodies of the ones who use it, just as much as the reality it is unleashed upon. It is also that power that witches and wizards call upon whenever they cast an unforgivable." Adrian said.

**A/n For any of the poor souls out there who don't recognize it, the lines harry quotes are from invictus.**

**Also does this seem like a sudden end to the chapter, or a decent cut-off... ? I'm not really sure right now.**


	8. Sense to the Senseless

A/N Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar. (Character of the week - don't ask, I just like his name) though anyone who recognizes the name gets a cookie...

Chapter Seven - Sense to the Senseless

Dumbledore and Sirius seemed rather surprised by my revelation, though to be honest, I had been equally surprised. When the auror had cast the killing curse I'd given it little thought, knowing that, no matter the spell, if the weaves were static - as they were when one used a wand - then a blade of spirit could easily slip in and through it, severing its own threads and rendering it useless. However, when my weave of spirit had shredded the weaves that had flown from the auror's wand it had only revealed the spells true nature; it manipulated reality into gathering some of the dispersed and Senseless force of Destruction into a single point and a single purpose. Once the spell was cast the True Power would take form almost instantly and after that it would be nearly impossible to stop - invisible to even my senses.

That brought me to think of something else I had long ago realized; there was another reason to call this the Second World. Creation gave Destruction Sense, but not in every reality. Perhaps the Sense given couldn't span more than one reality, perhaps each reality had a unique Creation and Destruction, but my own interpretation was that each reality was an expression of a single Creation, and that Creation either tried everything at least once, or could learn from its mistakes. I believe it learns, for if it is capable of giving Destruction Sense, then it must have some sort of Sense itself. I also believe giving Destruction Sense was a mistake, a mistake Creation learned from and has never repeated; thus this reality could not have come before the one in which Destruction was given sense.

It was an odd train of thought, more philosophical than most I had pursued, however, when one has lived so long, such thoughts inevitably take up some of one's time. I have come to believe that Creation and The Creator are two distinct and separate things. That Creation is a force, and that it cannot exist without its opposite, Destruction. As for the Creator, there are so many different beliefs about him - or it, however, one imagines the Creator - I'm not sure which I believe, though I have trouble believing it some all powerful, all benevolent being. I think that if there truly is a Creator, that he must be indifferent to us, not cruel or benevolent, nor even really aware of us; after all how aware are we of the tiny single celled organisms that exist all about us, numbering greater than all the humans of an entire world in just a small space. We have become aware of these things and on occasion a person will spend their life studying them and experimenting with them, but for the most part we think nothing of them, neither to act against them nor to be at all concerned for them. In comparison to our own capacity to think and feel these organisms are nothing, likewise I expect our own ability to think and feel must be insignificant when compared to a being capable of Creation.

I have also come to believe that magicals and channelers are, in a way, Creation's own experiment and inspiration; he gives us a little of his own power and then watches what we do with it, to see if we do or discover something he did not, this is why I expect that each successive universe he creates will likely have fewer and weaker magical beings in it - even if it still has the same amount of Creation and Life.

Though all of this is a terrible tangent from the matters at hand, and has very little to do with what I need do, now that I have returned to the home I was long ago torn from.

"The history and reality of the Dark One and the true nature of Creation and Destruction, such as we know it, are just a few example of something that is common knowledge in the First World that isn't here. The position as a teacher will allow me to impart knowledge of it and much else to your students while I learn of the magic I had not the time to, before." Adrian finally said, when he dragged himself from his wandering thoughts. "In fact, I might just take the time to teach a few individuals how to use magic correctly." He smiled a little wryly, amused by Dumbledore's and Sirius' confused reactions.

"Use magic correctly?" Dumbledore prompted, clearly willing to hear this explanation.

Adrian smiled fully, "Why yes. You would agree, would you not, that I am an above average wizard?" Adrian asked, receiving a nod in answer. "Well then, how would it interest you to know that because of the incorrect way in which we go about using and learning magic, I am considered little more than a squib in regards to power, in the First World."

Dumbledore's eyes widened slightly, contemplating how powerful the witches and wizards in the First World must be if Harry were weak in comparison. He frowned slightly, "Am, or was?" Dumbledore asked.

Adrian understood the question, whether he still was weaker than the channelers of the First World. "Am." Adrian said in answer. "Do you know much of wand lore, Dumbledore?" Adrian asked, curious, as he knew very little but what he had been able to guess.

Dumbledore's brows furrowed. "Only what is common knowledge, I am no expert in the subject."

Adrian smiled, surprised slightly that Dumbledore could admit ignorance. "Please, share what you know, as I likely know far less of what you would consider the common knowledge."

"Very well. Wands are a refinement of Staffs which were first introduced about six thousand years ago by Merlin, the founder of modern magic. It was said that before wands magic was wild, that if the witch or wizard didn't tame their magic that it would inevitably rebel against being shackled to a week host and that it would lash out at the world, destroying civilizations. Then staffs were introduced as a way of connecting an individual and their magic in a way that permitted them to tame it and make it their own so that there was no more destruction. Since then we have only refined our control of magic and our techniques in creating wands and harnessing our magic." Dumbledore explained.

I smiled, his story had confirmed my own beliefs. "That is only partially accurate." I said. "You see I have discovered that to bond to a wand is to have a permanent cap put on your magical potential at the time you first bond. This is has stopped to 'wild magic' as you call it because as we grow older we should grow into our full potential, and as we do the power we have will become impossible to ignore and will demand a user use it, often resulting in wild magic if the user isn't taught proper control. That also means that muggleborns who don't bond with a wand until they're eleven, have actually had longer to grow into their power than purebloods who will often get their hands on a wand much earlier." Dumbledore's eyes widened slightly, the revelations of the day continuing to surprise him. "In the First World magical individuals rarely grow powerful enough to even access and begin learning to harness their magic until their late teens or early twenties, also they rarely reach their full potential until their thirties or even forties. That means that you are stopping all magical growth anywhere from twenty to thirty years before we are meant to reach our peak." Adrian smiled wryly. "The only reason I ever accomplished anything at all in the First World, besides being laughed out of the Tower, was because witches and wizards wield their magic inherently differently than they do, we have refined the way we wield our magic to a degree that they cannot hope to match with their massive torrents of power. Where a Channeler of the First World could start an earthquake, tsunami, massive gusts of wind, or even great gouts of fire more easily than a wizard casts a levitation charm, a First World Channeler will never have the finesse necessary to produce a Patronus or the more complicated transfigurations." Anyway I am very unlikely to try and teach that magic to anyone, because to achieve any success with it once one has bonded to a wand is incredibly difficult, I was, after all, a novice in the Tower for over eighty years.

"Regardless, I clearly have much to offer your students and much in turn Hogwarts can offer me in expanding my understanding of wizarding magic. So I suppose this is my proper request for you to allow me to teach at your fine school." Adrian said, smiling.

Dumbledore contemplated him for a moment before speaking. "I will need to get approval from the governors to introduce a new subject, as well as add another teacher to the payroll; for that I think it would be best if I had a syllabus and some general summaries about just what you have to offer the students to be presented to them. Also we must consider how you will teach the class - as yourself, or under some disguise. However, the summer holidays have just begun so time still remains for all of that to be done." Dumbledore spoke in a rather businesslike fashion the administrator in him coming to the surface. "During that time I would like to invite you to make yourself at home in the accommodations we have for guests here at the castle." He finished with a welcoming smile.

**A/N Sorry about the rambling about the nature of the universes and Creation/Creator, however, I'm taking an intro philosophy class this semester and it's gotten me thinking about these sorts of things.**

**I've had all but the last couple paragraphs done for almost a week now, but wasn't quite sure how to close it off nicely... I don't think I managed it too well, but it's there - tell me if you see an obvious way of improving it.**


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